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CIOs form a key part of any business that utilizes technology. In recent times, it has been identified that an understanding of just business or IT is deficient.[1] CIOs are needed for the management of IT resources as well as the “planning of ICT including policy and practice development, planning, budgeting, resourcing and training”.[2] In addition to this, CIOs are becoming increasingly important in calculating how to increase profits via the use of ICT frameworks, as well as the vital role of reducing expenditure and limiting damage by setting up controls and planning for possible disasters. Computer Weekly magazine highlights that “53% of IT leaders report a shortage of people with high-level personal skills” in the workplace.[3] In this way, CIOs are needed to decrease the gulf between roles carried out by both IT professionals and non-IT professionals in businesses in order to set up effective and working relationships.

The Chief Information Officer of an organization is responsible for a number of roles. Firstly and most importantly, the CIO must fulfil the role of business leader.[4] As a CIO must make executive decisions regarding things such as the purchase of IT equipment from suppliers or the creation of new systems, they are therefore responsible to lead and direct the workforce of their specific organization. In addition, the CIO is ‘required to have strong organizational skills’.[5] This is particularly relevant for a Chief Information Officer of an organization, who must balance roles in order to gain a competitive advantage and keep the best interests of the organization’s employees. CIOs also have the responsibility of recruiting, so it is important that they take on the best employees to complete the jobs the company needs fulfilling.

In addition, CIOs are directly required to map out both the ICT strategy and ICT policy of an organization. The ICT strategy covers future proofing, procurement and the external and internal standards laid out by an organization. Similarly, the CIO must write up the ICT policy, detailing how ICT is utilised and applied. Both are needed for the protection of the organization in the short and long term and the process of strategising for the future. Paul Burfitt, former CIO of AstraZeneca also outlines the CIO’s role of IT governance, which he refers to as the “clarifying” of “accountability and the role of committees”.[6]

As the CIO has a large number of responsibilities such as provision of finance, recruitment of professionals and development of policy and strategy, the risks are consequently vast. The CIO of U.S company Target was forced into resignation in 2014 after the theft of 40 million credit card details and 70 million customer details by hackers.[7] CIOs carry out a large number of roles and therefore the chance of failure is very high. In this way, any CIO must be knowledgeable about the industry so they can adapt and reduce the chance of error. It is this high risk factor that places the role of Chief Information Officer as one of the highest paid IT/Business jobs. In the UK, CIOs receive an average salary of £87,500,[8] which dwarfs the average UK salaries of roles such as IT manager (£38,642)[9] and business analyst (£47,500).[10]

Information technology and its systems have become so important that the CIO has come to be viewed in many organizations as the key contributor in formulating strategic goals for an organization. The prominence of the CIO position has greatly risen as information, and the information technology that drives it, has become an increasingly important part of the modern organization. Many CIOs are adding additional c-level titles to reflect the growing importance of technology in successfully running companies; this trend is referred to as the CIO-plus. The CIO may be a member of the executive committee of an organization, and/or may often be required to engage at board level depending on the nature of the organization and its operating structure and governance environment. No specific qualifications are intrinsic of the CIO position, though the typical candidate may have expertise in a number of technological fields - computer science, software engineering, or information systems. Many candidates have Master of Business Administration or Master of Science in Management degrees.[11] More recently CIOs' leadership capabilities, business acumen and strategic perspectives have taken precedence over technical skills. It is now quite common for CIOs to be appointed from the business side of the organization, especially if they have project management skills.

Typically, a CIO is involved with driving the analysis and re-engineering of existing business processes, identifying and developing the capability to use new tools, reshaping the enterprise's physical infrastructure and network access, and with identifying and exploiting the enterprise's knowledge resources. Many CIOs head the enterprise's efforts to integrate the Internet into both its long-term strategy and its immediate business plans. CIO's are often tasked with either driving or heading up crucial IT projects which are essential to the strategic and operational objectives of an organization. A good example of this would be the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system which typically has wide-ranging implications for most organizations. The CIO is evolving into a role where he/she is creating and monitoring business value from IT assets, to the point where corporate strategist Chris Potts suggests in the novel FruITion that the Chief Information Officer (CIO) be replaced with Chief Internal Investments Officer (CIIO).[14]

Another way that the CIO role is changing is an increased focus on service management.[15] As SaaS, IaaS, BPO and other more flexible value delivery techniques are brought into organizations the CIO usually functions as a 3rd party manager for the organization. In essence, a CIO in the modern organization is required to possess business skills and the ability to relate to the organization as a whole, as opposed to being a technological expert with limited functional business expertise. The CIO position is as much about anticipating trends in the market place with regard to technology as it is about ensuring that the business navigates these trends through expert guidance and proper strategic IT planning that is aligned to the corporate strategy of the organization.

The roles of both Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer are commonly blurred. Tom Silver, the North American senior vice president for Dice, states that CTOs are concerned with technology itself, whereas CIOs are much more concerned with its applications in the business and how this can be managed.[16]

More specifically, CIOs manage a businesses’ IT systems and functions, creates and delivers strategies and policies and places great emphasis on the customers internal to the company. In contrast to this, CTOs place emphasis on the external customers to the organization and focuses on how different technology can make the company more profitable.[17]